Miklos Banffy: They Were Divided

A thick floral carpet covered the stone flags on the floor.

‘It is beautiful, isn’t it?’ Pfaffulus had said; and he took Balint round showing him the carvings on the stalls and explaining the reliefs, all of which commemorated some miracle or incident in the life of the holy Saint Paul the Hermit, founder of the order.

Then he crossed in front of the altar, genuflecting swiftly as he did so, to show Balint the Abbot’s stall and a series of holy pictures by well-known artists. They had almost returned to the chapel doors when the priest stopped and sat down, a thoughtful look on his fine expressive face. It was as if he had just remembered something.

After nodding appreciation at Balint’s words of thanks he looked up at the younger man and, seemingly unable to keep to himself what had come so strongly to his mind, grasped Balint’s arm and pulled him down to sit beside him. As he did so he said:

‘Do you know what this chapel means to me? I love it as if it were a living human being, not only because of its beauty but also because of so many things that have happened to me within its walls.’

He explained that it was at Jablanka that he had started his professional career, as tutor to Count Antal Szent-Gyorgyi. Later, after several years spent in Rome, he had returned as the castle’s resident priest; though he had never accepted any parish of his own even though the Count was patron of several rich livings and pressed him to take the best of them. He told Balint that he had preferred to remain quietly where he was and continue his studies in canon law.

Then he gave an especially sweet smile and went on:

‘I have another very dear memory. It was in this church that I officiated at the wedding of Count Antal’s other sister, the Countess Charlotte who married a Swede, Count Olaf Loewenstierna.’ As he said these words Pfaffulus’s thin pointed nose seemed to grow even longer and he raised his eyebrows expressively. ‘It was very bold on my part, as the bridegroom, of course, was a Protestant and I should not really have performed the ceremony without the promise that the children should be brought up as Catholics. But what could I do? The old Count gave his orders and said that one could not ask such a thing of a Loewenstierna, who was descended from one of Gustavus Adolphus’s generals; and anyway he would despise the young man if he abandoned his family traditions. If he, as a good Catholic father, did not demand it, then I should not either. Naturally I did as he wished.’

Here the round little priest had leaned forward and spoken confidentially into Balint’s ear.

‘Of course I had committed a fault; even perhaps a sin, yes, a sin. And yet it was my sin, and mine alone, because in such circumstances only the priest can be at fault. I went straight afterwards to see the Prince-Cardinal. It was then Monsignor Simor. To him I confessed my fault, my crime. I knelt before him and he gave me a thorough scolding and some pretty harsh penances with which to atone for my lapse. Then he invited me to eat with him. Afterwards he had said: “You were wise, my son, not to ask for guidance because no permission would ever have been given. Yes, you did the wise, the clever thing. The family of Szent-Gyorgyi have done much for our church for several centuries and so they fall into a very special category. I am sure that this is how the Roman Curia would regard the matter too.”’

Czibulka had then fallen silent, gazing ahead as if conscious only of his own memories. Then he had got up and looked at Abady as if excusing himself for having burdened the young man with such personal reminiscences.

‘You must forgive my idle chatter,’ he said. ‘I seem to have gone on at length about things which only concern myself. But this chapel, you see, means so much to me.’

Then he had made another quick genuflection towards the altar, switched out the lights, and escorted Balint out of the chapel. They walked back together to the drawing-room where everyone was gathering for tea.

They had thought of every way to encourage and reassure him, and so everything had depended on him and on him alone. And then he had let the moment pass and so thrown away his chances, if not of love then at least of a kind and loving wife, of a family, and of a nest to come home to.

It had been on the last evening of his stay that he had let the final opportunity escape him.

He had dressed for dinner early and when he had entered the drawing-room he had found it deserted. Then, through the open doors to the library, he had seen Lili, who for some reason of her own had also dressed before the others. She had been kneeling on a chair drawn up to a long table in the centre of the room, leaning forward with her bare elbows reflected on the polished wooden table top as she turned the pages of a large album of engravings. She had seemed totally engrossed in the pictures before her.

At that moment he had instinctively known that she had come down early to the library with a single purpose, and that that had been, if possible, to give him one final occasion on which to make his proposal, final because it had been the last night of that gathering at Jablanka to which he had been invited just for that purpose.

‘Do you know this collection?’ Lili had asked when Balint had come up to her and leaned beside her on the table. ‘It is very rare. It’s the record of a journey to Egypt by a Hungarian, a Count Forray. Aren’t these coloured engravings lovely? Do look! Look at this one! Isn’t it beautiful?’ and as she had looked up at him the question in her wide open violet-blue eyes had had nothing to do with the pictures on the table.

Together they had turned the pages slowly; and as they did so sometimes their arms or their fingers had touched and sometimes they had exchanged a word or two: ‘This must be Malta!’, ‘Do look at the camel-driver!’, ‘The Khedive’s palace …’, words without any real meaning whose purpose had only been to break the silence.

Several times Balint had thought that the moment had come to speak the words for which she was waiting. He had only to take her hand and murmur a few short sentences and with that simple action he would have wiped out the past and started a new era in his life. Adrienne had wanted it that way and had expected it of him; but somehow the right words had never come, only those banal phrases about the engravings in the album on the table before them. And yet, as he was saying something obvious about the temple at Karnak and how large its stones were, he had been wondering if he ought then to have said ‘I love you’, which would have been a lie, or whether all that would have been needed was ‘Will you be my wife?’ until the moment had passed and they had been obliged to get up and go into the drawing-room where the other guests had started to gather.

Lili had then got down from the chair on which she had been kneeling and slowly straightened up. Balint remembered that he had wondered then if she thought he might have been embarrassed to speak under the bright glare of the electric chandelier above them, especially as she had walked straight over to one of the deep window embrasures, where the thickness of the old walls would have made them invisible to the guests in the other room. She had gone right up to the window and then, with her face close to the glass, and clearly to find another reason for the move, she had murmured ‘Do look at the frost. It is like flowers made of ice!’ and then she had turned and glanced back at him.

But Balint, who had followed her only as far as the beginning of the deep window embrasure, had just stood there still looking at the vast library.